


My Cruel Friend is a Funeral Bell

by samyazaz



Series: Pornathon 2013 [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Banshees, M/M, Team Gluttony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 08:12:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samyazaz/pseuds/samyazaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Merlin knew was that some days he woke up with a hurt in his chest that was too great to be contained. Sometimes it's an ache beneath his breastbone, and he rubs his knuckles against it throughout the day, and that's enough. Some days, it's more than he can bear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Cruel Friend is a Funeral Bell

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Week 2 of Summerpornathon 2013: Multimedia challenge

They said he was a solemn child. His mother said even as a baby, he was prone to colic and cried more often than not. All Merlin knew was that some days he woke up with a hurt in his chest that was too great to be contained. Sometimes it's an ache beneath his breastbone, and he rubs his knuckles against it throughout the day, and that's enough. Some days, it's more than he can bear. He makes it through his chores, through the meals he shares with his mother. He holds it in until he feels like an overripe fruit, ready to burst. And then, when his mother and the rest of the village are sleeping, he creeps down to the river, his feet quiet on the slippery pebbles that line the shore, and he sits there with his face turned up to the moon and he cries and cries until he's empty and exhausted.

One day his mother discovers him. It's the middle of the day, but the grief has been with him since dawn, and he's alone scrubbing laundry at the river, so he takes a moment to crouch with his hands in the frigid water and let the tears flow. But then his mother comes, bringing him a spare stocking that was missed beneath the bed. Merlin quickly wipes his face with the bundle of wet wool in his hands, to hide the tears.

She freezes all the same, and stares at Merlin, stricken. "That's your father's. Where did you get that?"

He stares at the garment bundled in his hands. It's a red kerchief, sodden and dripping. "It was in the laundry."

"No. I sent it off with him. I wrapped it around his neck when he left." She takes it from Merlin and stares at it like she's going to cry too, then clutches it to her chest and takes it back to the house with her.

#

A week later, travelers find his body and bring him home, a red wound across his belly and a red kerchief tied around his neck. When she sees him, Hunith goes white as a sheet. She drags Merlin home with an iron grip and tears the house apart searching for the red kerchief. Merlin helps her, but they can't find it anywhere. It's gone.

Hunith takes Merlin's face in her hands and stares at him, tears in her eyes. "Oh, my boy," she whispers. "You mustn't tell anyone about this, or they'll take you from me too."

#

He never breathes a word, and he keeps his tears to the midnight hours, but all the same, the next summer a group of knights ride into Ealdor on horses that look as tall as houses. Hunith pushes Merlin behind her when the knights reign their mounts to a stop before their door, though Merlin's a head taller than her by now and has outgrown her protection.

One of the knights dismounts and advances. "You are Merlin of Ealdor?"

Hunith's fingers dig bruises on his arm. Merlin swallows down his fear and pries her hand off gently. She'll fight for him, he knows, and he can't lose her too. "I am."

The knight nods once. He reaches for Merlin, then stops and offers his hand instead. "The King requests you presence in his court."

Hunith wraps his father's kerchief around his neck and sends him off with it. When she kisses his cheek and hugs him tight, there are tears in her eyes, but Merlin's, for once, are dry.

#

In Camelot, he learns there's a name for what he is. _Bean-sidhe_ , a harbinger of death. Uther has one of his own, an old man named Gaius who is always at his side, so the King might know when his death draws near.

Merlin is given into the service of Prince Arthur, who is tall and proud and golden and seems too strong to ever be struck down. Merlin wants to cry, the first time he looks at him.

#

He serves Arthur, and he learns from Gaius. He learns that his grief is his gift, and that it never errs.

"Everybody dies," Gaius tells him. "But the time and the manner aren't set in stone. Some deaths can be avoided. Some fates can be changed. You won't feel it until the death is inevitable, until they've set themselves upon a course that cannot be changed."

Merlin nods and takes notes, but he suspects there's little point. He's a terrible _bean-sidhe_ already. He hurts all the time now, and it cannot be confined to the dark hours of night when no one else is around to bear witness.

#

"Is serving me that intolerable?" Arthur demands.

Merlin startles. He'd thought he was being circumspect about dashing the tears from his eye, but Arthur stands just behind him, fists on his hips, looking stern. "No," he gasps. "Your Highness, _no._ Don't think that." His mother would never understand, but standing at Arthur's side feels like where he's meant to be, even if he _is_ the worst _bean-sidhe_ the court has seen in generations.

#

Arthur's anger turns to impatience, then confusion, and finally, to concern. "Am I going to die, Merlin?" he asks late one night as Merlin's turning down his sheets.

Merlin freezes and feels that old, familiar catch in his chest. "All men die, Highness."

Arthur gives him a look. "Am I going to die _soon?"_

"No," Merlin says, automatically and without thought, without stopping to consult his grief, because the thought is intolerable. _"No_."

Arthur wipes the tears from his cheeks. He looks thoughtful for a moment, and then he leans in and kisses Merlin, gentle and sweet. "Don't cry," he says against Merlin's mouth. "Not for me."

#

They are not circumspect.

Merlin can't be. His need for Arthur is like a fire. It burns away his tears until his cheeks are dry and his body alight. Arthur pushes him down, because he wouldn't be Arthur if he wasn't pushy, and bites his neck as his hips flex and he drives his cock into Merlin. Merlin arches his back and cries out loud enough for the whole castle to hear, but he doesn't care. He can't, because these moments, when Arthur is moving in him and gasping hot breaths against the side of his neck, they're the only time that Merlin feels anything at all besides grief.

Arthur's teeth dig into his skin, muffling his growl as he comes. When he closes his hand around Merlin's cock and drags him off the precipice with him, Merlin throws his head back and laughs with giddy delirium.

Afterwards, Arthur lays on his back staring up at the bed's canopy, and the corners of his mouth pull up into a smile. "I'm going to have to make you do that again," he says.

Merlin thinks he means come, but when Arthur rolls over and brushes his fingers over Merlin's mouth, he realizes that what Arthur means is _laugh_.

#

Merlin spends years serving Arthur's, and eventually he comes to realize the truth. Arthur is bold and steadfast, and he cares about his country more than anything else in the world. He holds strong in his ideals and never strays from what he believes is right, and that's why Merlin wants to cry every moment that he's at his side. Because Arthur's ideals are going to be the death of him. He set himself on the course that will lead to his end long before Merlin met him and not even Merlin can lead him from it, though Arthur is more inclined to listen to him than anyone else in the castle.

And Merlin knows that he'll stand at his side until that day comes, though every morning it breaks his heart anew, because Arthur is the best man Merlin knows and someone must bear witness to that.

And because Gaius said that some deaths can be avoided, and Merlin will cling to that hope until the day he dies, or Arthur does.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] My Cruel Friend is a Funeral Bell](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016809) by [RsCreighton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton)




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